Nine things The Great European Disaster Movie got wrong

The BBC Four documentary cited a number of popular myths about the European
Union says Toby Young

Flavia Piras Trow and Angus Deayton star in The Great European Disaster MoviePhoto: BBC

By Toby Young

6:37PM GMT 02 Mar 2015

Last night, the BBC broadcast The Great European Disaster Movie, a “documentary” set in the future about the calamitous consequences of Britain’s exit from the European Union. According to the makers of the film, this would create a domino effect, prompting more and more countries to withdraw until, in 2022, the European Union collapses. By then, Nigel Farage has become Prime Minister and begun to repatriate anyone who arrived in Britain since 2007, widespread civil disorder has broken out in Greece, Italy and Spain, a state of emergency has been declared in France and ISIL has begun its “unstoppable” advance across the European mainland.

The film was made by Bill Emmott, an ex-editor of the Economist, and Annalisa Piras, an Italian journalist who writes for the Guardian. Europhiles often portray their opponents as swivel-eyed fanatics who are impervious to reason, but The Great European Disaster Movie wasn’t exactly a model of dispassionate, evidence-based analysis. On the contrary, it was an example of the scaremongering often engaged in by pro-Europeans, except instead of merely claiming that Brexit would cause the economy to collapse, it threw in Western civilisation for good measure. As the Conservative MEP Dan Hannan pointed out, the only thing it left out of this apocalyptic scenario was flesh-eating zombies.

In the course of 75 minutes, Emmott and Piras managed to shoehorn in all the usual myths about the European Union. In no particular order, they were:

1. Winston Churchill believed Britain’s place was inside a United States of Europe

Towards the beginning of the film, we hear a recording of Churchill’s 1946 speech in which he called for the creation of “a kind of United States of Europe”. This is played out against a backdrop of European cities reduced to rubble by the Second World War. (Hint, hint.) What Emmott and Piras neglect to tell us is that Churchill believed Britain should remain outside this supranational structure.

The film keeps returning to a fictional archaeologist played by Angus Deayton who’s flying to Berlin Tempelhof Airport to deliver a speech about the European Union. The plane gets diverted – just as well, because Berlin Tempelhof was closed in 2008 – and Deayton uses the time to deliver a series of Thought For The Day-style homilies to the little girl sitting next to him. Why a child? Presumably, because that’s how Emmott and Piras view the people their propaganda is pitched at – we’re all children to these great sages. At one point, Deayton produces the medal awarded to the EU by the Nobel Prize Committee, though quite what it’s doing in his pocket is never explained. He then tells the girl that it was given to the EU in 2012 for keeping the peace in Europe, omitting any reference to the Cold War, NATO, the United States and, indeed, any of the numerous armed conflicts that have broken out in Europe since 1945.

3. Immigration is an unqualified good

Another of Deayton’s perorations is on the subject of immigration which, needless to say, he’s in favour of. He explains to the little girl that Sweden, which is portrayed as a social democratic utopia before the collapse of the EU, was in the habit of giving free milk to refugees and asylum seekers. “They understood you see that immigration was a good thing,” he says. The notion that mass immigration might have contributed to downward pressure on wages and soaring levels of unemployment in countries like Spain and Italy isn’t even entertained, although we are shown a brief glimpse of a graphic that tells us the number of immigrants in Spain increased from 4.9 per cent of the population in 2000 to 14.6 per cent in 2013 and in Italy from 2.5 per cent of the population in 2000 to nine per cent in 2013.

EU Political Monopoly (Photo: BBC)

4. The European project was responsible for the economic resurgence of Europe after the Second World War

The film opens with a montage, contrasting the destruction left by the Second World War with the prosperity enjoyed by most European countries today and, in the background, we see the European Union flag fluttering majestically. But isn’t there something missing from this picture? Namely, the multi-billion dollar rebuilding programme known as the Marshall Plan and paid for by the United States.

5. If Britain leaves the EU, it will no longer be allowed to trade with the 27 remaining member states

This old chestnut is dusted off and served up by Peter Mandelson, who claims the EU would react to Brexit by banning the UK from trading with it. One word rebuttal to this canard: Norway. Just as Norway is allowed to be a member of the European Economic Area and the European Free Trade Association in spite of not being a member of the EU, so would Britain. Norway is currently the EU’s fifth most important import partner, selling approximately €100 billion of goods in the EU each year and spending roughly €50 billion on products manufactured in the EU. The EU wouldn’t erect any trade barriers following Britain’s exit for the simple reason that it doesn’t want to cut off its own access to the British market.

6. The UK will be torn asunder if Britain votes to leave the EU

Nigel Farage is referred to, disparagingly, as the Prime Minister of “Great England”, the implication being that if Britain votes to leave, Scotland will vote for independence so it can remain in. (Although why that would happen, given that all the other countries would immediately leave, too, according to the film, isn’t explained.) Actually, a Survation poll for the Scottish Daily Mail last year revealed that those in favour of Scottish independence would vote to leave the EU in far greater numbers than those against. So, actually, Brexit would make the United Kingdom less likely to break up, not more.

7. Russia’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine show how vital the EU is to Europe’s security

“It seems to me that Europe is sleepwalking towards disaster, just as it did 100 years ago in the run up to the First World War,” says Bill Emmott, referring to the current conflict in Ukraine. Odd argument, that. After all, it’s not as if the existence of the EU has kept Putin at bay. On the contrary, many would argue that it's the EU’s expansionist ambitions, wanting to incorporate Ukraine as a new member state, that has triggered the conflict.

EU leaders at the 2014 Wales Nato Summit (Photo: BBC)

8. The EU remains Europe’s best hope of fulfilling the dream of universal social justice for all

This particular bit of wishful thinking is articulated by a member of Podemos, who says wistfully that he hopes the original dream of the founders of the European Union will be realised and that all European people can be guaranteed a minimum standard of social justice. Unfortunately, he doesn’t address the issue of why taxpayers in the solvent member states should be forced to provide a minimum standard of social justice for residents of an insolvent member state who refuse to pay their taxes, like Greece.

9. The EU’s democratic deficit can be solved by spending more money on pro-EU propaganda

Peter Mandelson acknowledges that the EU has a problem of “democratic legitimacy” – which is big of him – but thinks it can easily be solved by raising awareness of what the EU does among Europe’s “youth”. Good luck with that, Pete. An alternative solution would be not to ignore the electorates of member states in referenda.

At the beginning of the film, Bill Emmott explains that The Great European Disaster Movie isn’t meant to be impartial. “This film reflects our personal views,” he says. “Not everyone will agree with us.” He’s right about that. Question is, when will Dan Hannan be given an opportunity by the BBC to make a 75-minute film putting the opposite point of view?